Devotion
Page 3
By that evening when Mrs. O’Dowd took up her watch again Wickham was in a more disturbing condition than ever. A fever had come on, and he began to exhibit strong hectic symptoms. Mrs. O’Dowd asked if he wished Lydia to come back and remain with him as well.
“I wish to see her gone to the devil,” he muttered agitatedly. “If not for her, I might have made my fortune. Ah! If only Georgiana had married me,” he continued growing almost frenzied. “Two days – only two days – and she would have been my wife. What do I not owe her brother!”
Mrs. O’Dowd, while disapproving the language abusive of Lydia, could not restrain herself from feeling curiosity about the other lady mentioned, and, exhibiting that lack of delicacy that sickroom attendance may breed, enquired, Who was Georgiana?
“She loved me, she had consented to be my mine. but her brother hates me.”
“I am very sorry indeed to hear it,” said Mrs. O’Dowd, quite in hope of hearing more of it. Wickham did not disappoint her.
“I was brought up for the Church. If he had been a man of honour I would have a living now. I cannot bear to think of it.”
Mrs. O’Dowd conceived that she ought to minister a little to Wickham’s soul as well as his body, and said gently, “If there are any you have quarreled with, surely now is the time for you to forgive them.”
“How can I forgive him his foul misconduct? He destroyed my prospects and my life.” Shudders of pain seized his frame; Mrs. O’Dowd administered an opiate, and his mind began to wander as his agony abated.
When midnight had passed he grew weaker, and there was a change. He suddenly spoke in an excited manner. “The pain is gone now, I am easy. I shall be well soon, I feel sure of it.” Mrs. O’Dowd had sat at the bedside of many a dying man and she did not participate in the patient’s optimism at the sudden termination of his suffering. She had no need to send for the surgeon to know that there was cause for none, for mortification had set in.
For a time he fell into a kind of sleep, and then surprised her by waking with a start. He fixed his gaze towards the foot of the bed, and at last raising himself a little on his elbow cried, “Georgiana! why did you leave me?”
“Georgiana again!” said Mrs. O’Dowd to herself. To Wickham she said, “Shall I send for your wife, my dear? She will stay with you for a little while.”
“My wife?” said Wickham, as if trying to catch the meaning of a riddle.
“Mrs. Wickham is nearby. I will send for her.”
He reached out for her hand and looked imploringly into her face. “You must send for Georgiana,” he said.
“Is she here in Brussels?” For she knew that if this Georgiana were further away she could not come in time.
“Bring me paper, I will write to her, and she will come,” he said in intense excitement.
“You are too weak at this moment. Rest, and write tomorrow.”
“No, I will do it now.”
She saw that he was determined to have immediate performance of his wish, and would take no repose until it had been accomplished, and so she brought him paper, a quill and ink. She braced the paper for him, but he could scarcely hold the pen, or summon the strength to form the letters; at last however he managed to write. “Put her direction on it, and send it at once,” he murmured when he was done.
“You must tell it to me, then, for all I know of her is that her name is Georgiana.”
“Darcy,” said Wickham faintly. “Miss Georgiana Darcy.” Mrs. O’Dowd folded the paper and wrote the name on the outside. “And where is she to be found?”
But he had passed into sleep or a swoon. Seeing this she read the letter with no compunction.
All the rest of that night and the following day Mrs. O’Dowd sat beside Wickham, with his hand in hers, listening to his failing breath and watching the changes in his aspect. From time to time his lips moved but emitted no sound; at the next dawn he grew still, but she kept his hand, until he was no more. “Thou carriest them away as with a flood,” she said softly. Then she rose and went to find Lydia.
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Wickham’s body was consigned to a grave in one of the Brussels burial grounds that were now nearly brimming over. His letter to Georgiana Darcy was placed in a box with his effects, and it, together with Lydia Wickham and her luggage, was transported to Pemberley, under the protection of Captain Westove.
It was not until Lydia Westove’s gowns were being packed up by the housekeeper Mrs. Reynolds in preparation for her journey with her new husband to Upper Canada that Wickham’s box was thought of again. Lydia was tearing about Pemberley in jubilation at marrying a second time, and there was little chance of her deliberations being squandered on her late husband’s possessions or if truth be told of her giving thought to any one other than herself and Captain Westove, and any thing other than their forthcoming voyage. She was completely inattentive to the housekeeper and would scarcely give her a hearing, but was at last brought by Mrs. Reynold’s determination to concentrate on the subject.
“Only think of its being five months since I went to Brussels!” she said, opening the box. “It seems but a fortnight, I declare, and yet things enough have happened. I was in such a commotion when Captain Westove came to take me back to England! I was so afraid that we should not get away. I do not know how we got into the carriage, with all the trunks and parcels, and I did not see why we should bring Wickham’s box, you can’t think how crammed in we were. I thought I behaved very handsomely, for we had to leave one of my bandboxes behind to make room for it. However I certainly shall not take it with me now.”
Mrs. Reynolds, who persisted in recalling Wickham with real affection, ventured to upbraid Lydia a little for her selfish thoughts, urging her to remember her husband as a brave soldier who had sacrificed himself.
Lydia was not likely to allow the lady to get the better of her when she had weapons at hand, and producing and then wiping away a tear she said, “Remember? I shall never forget him. Oh I thought I had broken my heart when my dear Wickham died, and that I should never be happy.”
Mrs. Reynolds had no choice but to retreat, and the gloom of Lydia’s melancholy loss was cleared away immediately, replaced by high spirits as she spoke of her great luck in getting another husband. “Well, there’s for you! Who would have thought I would be married again so soon? I do not care what you do with the box.”
The housekeeper stood her ground. “Ma’am, if you will permit me, there is a letter in it, addressed to Miss Darcy,” she said in a low voice.
“Good Lord, what would he write to Georgiana for?” said Lydia rather more loudly. Mrs. Reynolds brought forth the letter, and Lydia received it and quickly mastered its substance. “Heavens! But there is nothing in that,” she said, dropping it back in the box. “What a queer and shaky hand! I would hardly know it for his at all.”
Mrs. Reynolds pressed her lips together, thinking of Wickham on his deathbed and Lydia apparently nowhere to be seen. But prudently all she said was, “Shall I give the letter to Miss Darcy, ma’am?”
“Whatever for?”
“She was very fond of him when she was a child, and he of her, though he did turn out so wild. Ah, if I were to go through the world, I could not meet with a handsomer young gentleman, other than my master! I say no more than the truth.” She shook her head. “But very likely he was mistaken about this marriage business. I am sure I never heard anything of it.”
“I will answer for it, he never cared three straws about her. She must have been a fool to like him, for he only wanted her money. Oh! There, I had forgotten what a great secret it was supposed to be! I ought not to have said a word about it. But it does not signify; there is no danger of Georgiana going to him now.”
“But as to the letter, ma’am?”
Lydia expressed her perfect indifference to its fate, as to every other belonging of her late husband’
s, and Mrs. Reynolds at last proposed that since Wickham had no family living the box might be sent to Mrs. Younge in London, for he had mentioned her as a friend. Lydia gave a vast sigh of relief, declared herself satisfied, and escaped from the room.
In the tumult of preparation for Lydia’s departure the box was shunted aside, and sat unnoticed once more for several months, until Pemberley’s bedrooms were being readied for guests attending the Christmas celebrations. A housemaid showed it to Mrs. Reynolds, asking what was to be done with it, and it was shortly sent on its way to London.
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CHAPTER
3
London and Pemberley, January 1816
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Mrs. Selina Younge was a well-bred and agreeable woman of middle age, who, having been left a widow with a very small fortune, had been forced to contrive how to live in good society. After manoeuvring with considerable skill, she succeeded in pleasing a fashionable lady so much with her accomplishments and respectability, as to persuade her to recommend her as a companion for a young lady. This was Miss Georgiana Darcy. Miss Darcy was then but fifteen years old and just out of school, and her brother Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy formed an establishment for her in town, over which Mrs. Younge was installed as governess. Mrs. Younge’s respectability turned out to be illusory however. On the arrival of summer she took her charge to the town of Ramsgate, ostensibly to benefit from the fresher air of the seaside town, and there, by arrangement, went also Mr. George Wickham. Mr. Wickham as a boy had been a great favourite of Miss Darcy, and her affectionate heart had retained a strong attachment to him. He being, like Mrs. Younge, in impecunious circumstances, had developed a strategy with her to persuade Miss Darcy to elope, and he was able so far to influence her that she acquiesced, and it wanted but two days to the event when Mr. Darcy without warning joined his sister in Ramsgate. In the whole breadth of Mrs. Younge’s consciousness, she had not foreseen the possibility of Miss Darcy revealing the truth to her brother – for she herself in the young lady’s place would never have dreamed of dealing so openly – and she therefore had taken no step to guard against this danger. Thus were produced consequences contrary to her intentions. Miss Darcy acknowledged the plan; Darcy wrote to Wickham, who immediately left Ramsgate; and Mrs. Younge was dismissed from her post.
After this tumble, Mrs. Younge took a large house in Edward-street in London, and maintained herself by letting rooms. Her intimate acquaintance with Wickham was not severed, and when he induced another young lady to elope with him, the errant couple went to her house on their first arrival in town, and would have taken up their abode with her had she had space to accommodate them. The young lady on this occasion was Miss Lydia Bennet, who shortly thereafter became Mrs. Wickham. Miss Bennet’s marriage was due in no small part to Mrs. Younge, for she condescended to accept a bribe in exchange for providing the young lady’s pursuer (that very same Mr. Darcy) with the pair’s direction; and having found them he so operated on Wickham’s sensibilities as to bring about a wedding that would otherwise not have taken place.
Mrs. Younge’s corruption damaged her relations with Wickham for a time, but in the passage of a few months they were mended and Wickham rarely neglected to call on her when he was in town, and occasionally involved her in dubious transactions of which nothing need be mentioned in these pages.
On a January morning she was carrying out her household tasks in Edward-street, and thinking complacently of her shrewdness in having covered the old rug in the front drawing room with a handsome green baize, that any prospective lodger might assume that there was a rich carpet beneath it. Her admiration of her own cunning was interrupted by the delivery of a package, which she opened to discover within Wickham’s effects sent down from Pemberley.
Mrs. Younge had been much saddened by the news of his death and she sorted through the contents of the package thinking that to have such a fine man cut off in the flower of his youth was most poignant, concurrently entertaining some small expectancy that money or an article of value might have been left in the box, for she was endowed with that remarkable ability of a London landlady to hold many important thoughts in her head at once. The box, alas, harboured nothing of immediately evident worth. But her eye was caught by the square of paper bearing the name of Miss Georgiana Darcy and she unfolded and read it.
She was at first cast down by seeing what was very evidently the creation of George Wickham’s last action; but as there was little profit in such morbid thoughts her mind quickly turned to what use she might make of the letter. She had soon delineated an idea that might bring her a little money, and felt genuine distress that she could not conceive of one that would have been more rewarding. But any amount would be useful to her at the present and she did not make the error of scorning a small gain today in aspiration of a larger one in the unknown future. Her letter to Georgiana was quickly inscribed and posted, and she returned to her domestic duties.
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Wickham’s letter threw Georgiana, as we have seen, into a most harrowing state, and each passing moment supplied greater agitation. With sobs of woe she indulged in regrets of what she had thrown away, and lamented bitterly her weakness in revealing to Darcy the plans she had made with Wickham. How different things would have been had she kept silence! He would have had her fortune at his disposal and would never have joined even the – shire Militia. He would now have been sitting with her in this very room at Pemberley, and she would have been holding their child in her arms as he tenderly gazed upon them. With these and similar wild imaginations did Georgiana innocently amuse herself as she wept and repented her probity.
Naturally a communication like Wickham’s could not soon be recovered from, particularly when read over and over again. Poor Georgiana’s spirits were so much affected as to make tranquillity quite unattainable. After two hours had passed the need of appearing composed in front of Darcy and Elizabeth, in order to escape unwelcome questions, at length caused her to put the note away and practise a smile. But she soon felt that concealment must be impossible and she went up to her room, telling a servant that she was slightly indisposed and wished to be left alone to rest.
In her apartment, Georgiana sat thinking deeply. The remembrance of her connexion with Wickham created an upheaval within her breast that solitary reflection increased rather than diminished, but she soon came to a first resolution, which was to keep her brother and sister from the knowledge of her two letters. While the secret was all her own, she had leisure to study what to do.
After the passage of five minutes she experimented with a second resolution, which was to put Wickham’s letter away and not look at it. But it was a failure. She found every other idea superseded by thoughts of him, his cruel death, and her name on his lips as he breathed his last. Her contemplation could settle on nothing else and the letter had scarcely been laid in a drawer before she took it out and perused it again. This was most unnecessary, as she knew it by heart, but by dwelling on particular lines she was able to remain thoroughly perturbed.
At length she recalled Mrs. Younge’s letter, and read it once more, commanding herself to examine its intention. At first she found little in it that could give her any comfort, but gradually the idea of making a journey to see Wickham’s burial place took hold of her, although whether enjoyment or anguish in such a trip would take the greater share she could not determine. Without losing a further instant of time she took up her pen and wrote to Mrs. Younge to make a private arrangement to travel to Brussels as soon as the Darcy family should go up to London for the opening of the parliamentary session. Then she hurried downstairs and placed the letter in the letter-bag. She thought not at all of the anxiety her disappearanc
e would occasion, for in her brain just then every other idea was superseded by her beloved Wickham.
The apprehension she felt in waiting for a reply nearly drew off her attention from her grief, but she had the good fortune of receiving an answer to her letter as soon as she possibly could. Mrs. Younge agreed to her plan, and named a day in February when she would expect Georgiana at Edward-street, from where they would immediately set out for Ramsgate, to take the boat to Ostend.
And so, in a miasma of high hopes and low intrigue, January closed upon the Darcy family.
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CHAPTER
4
Longbourn, January 1816
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The arrival of a new family in the country is usually taken to be a matter of self-gratulation to the inhabitants, and Mrs. Bennet was far from immune to this feeling.
“My dear Mr. Bennet,” said she exhibiting a degree of fulfilment commensurate with having executed the lease and bestowed the keys of the house with her own hands, “have you heard that new tenants have come down to Netherfield Park? Sir William Lucas saw Mr. Morris in Meryton and had it from him, and Lady Lucas has just been here and told me all about it. The servants were in the house at the end of last week, and the family arrived Wednesday in a coach and four. My dear, I am well aware that it is an etiquette that you despise, to run after your neighbours, but I must insist on your going to wait on Mr. Delaford. Sir William has determined to visit him, which I think is very hypocritical of him, for he does not know them at all; not that I care about it however, for he is very welcome to go to Netherfield if he likes. Lady Lucas has asked him particularly – because of Maria Lucas, you know. Oh, those Lucases are sly people, my dear! But it will be exceedingly rude if you do not go, and it will make it impossible for me to visit his mother. You have not the least idea what I suffer when I have to bear the consequences of your incivility – it quite tears my nerves to pieces.”